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The Armed Ship Bill 
Meant War 



By 

ROBERT M. La FOLLETTE 

United States Senator from Wisconsin 



March 27, 1917) 



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The Armed Ship Bill 
Meant War 



i. 

I WAS OPPOSED to the Armed Ship Bill. Under my oath as a Sen- 
ator it was my duty to do everything legitimately within my power 
to defeat it, and I exercised my constitutional right and discharged 
my constitutional obligation to defeat the measure insofar as permitted 
by the tyrannical action of a majority. This majority, as I believe and 
as I think the record plainly shows, resorted to a perversion of the rules 
and to the very filibustering methods which it so violently condemned, in 
order to prevent me from obtaining the floor to speak against the bill. 

1 A PLAIN STATEMENT of the facts will, I believe, convince any 
■*■• unbiased mind that the majority, in dealing with the Armed Ship 
Bill and matters connected therewith, was not acting upon its own voli- 
tion ; but that it was itself so coerced by an arranged order of events 
that it was deprived of all independence of legislative judgment and 
legislative action. 

It is well to remember that the 64th Congress was to expire by limita- 
tion at 12 o'clock noon on the 4th day of March. 

The next regular Congress would not meet until December 3rd — a 
period of nine months. 

If Congress was to complete its work by March 4th, it was absolutely 
necessary to report from Committee the appropriation bills supplying 
the money necessary for the several departments of government, and to 
report the bills in time to give them fair consideration. This was the 
more necessary because of the wanton and reckless extravagance in 
appropriations last year and the enormous increases urged upon this 
Congress by the Executive departments, imposing upon every Senator re- 
gardful of the interests of taxpayers already over-burdened, the obliga- 
tion to scrutinize these measures with the greatest possible care. 

But the appropriation bills were held back for some reason until it 
became a matter of comment among Senators and Representatives that 
the bills were to be "jammed through" in a rush at the end of the session. 

As the committees of Congress are organized, a few of the majority 
party leaders control the business and expedite it, or otherwise, at will. 



O FOR SOME unexplained reason six bills carrying an aggregate 
™ # appropriation of more than $500,000,000 were so delayed by those 
having them in charge that they were not even placed before the Senate 
for consideration or attempted to be passed at all. 

Six other great appropriation bills, carrying an aggregate of nearly a 
BILLION dollars, were so held back by those responsible for them that 
they were not passed and finally disposed of by the Senate, until the 
last forty-eight hours of the session, while another measure had the 
right of way and was the all-absorbing subject for consideration. 

What zvas the real underlying significance of such a proceeding? 

Was it to create a situation where a number of the bills might escape 
thorough investigation and debate? For example, the Naval Appropria- 
tion Bill will cost the people the enormous sum of $523,000,000 for the 
coming year. Such a bill ought to be carefully considered and thoroughly 
discussed. So, too, with the Army Appropriation Bill, carrying $278,- 
000,000, besides a provision to force military training upon the American 
people. Think of attempting to drive that proposition through without 
opportunity for deliberation and debate ! 

Whatever may have been the reason for the condition of legislation 
described — it had been brought about. It existed and presented a situa- 
tion most favorable for bringing forward a measure such as the Armed 
Ship Bill. 

O THE CLOSING DAYS of a Congress are always a time of tremen- 
dous pressure and severe tension. 

It is the one time when a measure of debatable right that has not 
been thoroughly considered should be kept out. 

It is the one time of all others when a matter of great and momentous 
import to the peace of the nation should not be thrust into the gorged 
and swollen flood of legislation. 

And it was at this time in the last fifty hours of the life of the 64th 
Congress, with bills pending appropriating more than a billion and a half 
of the people's money calling for the most critical examination of Con- 
gress, that the President demanded the passage of the bill which sought 
to invest him with powers which if executed must inevitably bring on 
war. • 

A IF CONGRESS was to be called upon during that session to con- 
"• sider and pass upon that question fraught with its certain conse- 
quences, the country has a right to know why he waited until the last 
hour to present the bill. 

As early as the 31st day of last January, Germany had declared her 
determination to prosecute from and after February first relentless sub- 
marine warfare within the limits of her designated war zone. We had 
definite warning. Her purpose was unmistakable. 

Within fourteen days thereafter German submarines had sent two 
American vessels to the bottom of the sea. 



And still the President waited day after day without an intimation 
that he would seek to secure from Congress extraordinary and uncon- 
stitutional powers, to bring on war at his discretion. 

Finally in the last week of the session, the word came. 

Even then his bill was not presented for consideration by Committee 
until 68 hours before the expiration of Congress and came before the 
Senate for debate less than 50 hours before adjournment with appro- 
priation bills carrying hundreds of millions of dollars of tax burden still 
to be disposed of. 

C AT THIS POINT it is well for the public to understand that the 
*"** right of Congress to deal with the great issue raised, in a calm, 
thorough and dispassionate manner which its gravity and magnitude de- 
manded, could have been disposed of in a # word from the President. 

If his bill had been accompanied with a call for Congress to meet 
on the 5th day of March to consider the question of arming ships and 
employing all means and instrumentalities in the hands of this powerful 
government against Germany or any other foreign nation — there would 
have been no occasion for forcing immediate action upon the bill. 

The appropriation bills could have been properly discussed and dis- 
posed of, and then Congress could have addressed itself to the orderly 
consideration of this war issue. 

The Constitution makes Congress the only authoritative body to 
consider and determine the question of war with another nation 

One calmly reflecting upon this whole proceeding will find it difficult 
to discover a rational reason why the President should not, above all 
things, desire the presence of Congress at a time when the question of 
meeting violence with violence is to be determined. 



II. 

| THE ARMED SHIP BILL provided that the President be author - 
■* * ized to supply our merchant vessels "with arms and also the necessary 
ammunition and means of making use of them ;" also that the President 
be "authorized and empowered to employ such other instrumentalities 
and methods as may in his judgment and discretion seem necessary and 
adequate to protect such vessels." It appropriated $100,000,000 to be 
expended by the President "for the purpose of carrying into effect the 
foregoing provisions." 

The bill attempted to confer upon the Executive not only the authority 
to place guns and gunners upon merchant ships and send them to sea 
with orders to fire on German submarines at sight, but sought to em- 
power the President to use any other methods and any other instru- 
mentalities in his judgment necessary to protect such merchant ships. 



o GIVE VALIDITY and effect to such provisions and it removes 
^** every limitation upon his acts. 

He might do whatever it pleased him to do and there could be no 
check or halt upon him. 

He might decide to order our navy out to convoy merchantmrv. 
loaded with arms and ammunition, or with food and clothing and shoes 
for the allied armies. 

He might decide that our navy should patrol the trans-Atlantic lanes 
through the German war zone hunting submarines in the interest of the 
owners of our munition ships. 

He might decide that the best way to protect our merchant ships 
would be to land an army in Germany and destroy the Krupp works and 
any other manufacturing plants where Germany is constructing sub- 
marines. 

Nowhere would there be lodged any power to prevent any President 
from doing anything his judgment dictated with the army and navy to 
protect the merchant ships of our war traders. 

If the language of this bill does not seek to confer authority which 
would leave it in his discretion to make war, then there is no power in 
human language which could accomplish that result. 

o THE ARMED SHIP BILL is, therefore, contrary to the letter and 
*■'• spirit of the Constitution, which expressly vests the war power in 
Congress — without which provision the Constitution could not have been 
adopted. It was again and again affirmed in the constitutional debates 
that it would be dangerous to the liberty of the people to place the war- 
making power, and the control of the army and navy, in the hands of the 
Executive. In breaking away from the autocratic power of King George, 
the first thought of the framers of the Constitution was to be clear and 
specific as to this vital principle. The peoples of Europe, we are told, 
were plunged suddenly and hopelessly into the awful maelstrom of war 
through the autocratic agencies of monarchy and secret diplomacy. Bur 
the crowned heads of Europe and their diplomatic agents exercise their 
absolute authority under government sanction. If the President exercises 
it, it is in violation of expressed provisions of the Constitution. 

Our Supreme Court in Bas vs. Tingy (4 Dallas) decided that when 
Congress authorized private armed ships of the United States to defend 
themselves against the armed ships of France, it was a declaration of 
war on the part of Congress, and the Court said: 

"Every contention by force, between two nations in external matters, 
under the authority of their respective governments, is not only war, 
but public war." 

Congress cannot confer upon the Executive the powers invested iu 
it. In the case of the "Nereide," reported in 9th Cranch, the Supreme 
Court said : 

"To the legislative power alone it must belong to determine, when 
the violence of other nations is to be met by violence." 



III. 

THE ARMED SHIP BILL MEANT WAR. The public need not 
rely on opponents of the measure for proof of the fact; supporters of 
the bill in the course of the debate again and again specifically stated 
that it meant war. 

Senator Lodge, supporter of the bill, and ranking Republican member 
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said : 

"Mr. President, in my opinion for us to arm a- vessel loaded with 
contraband, or to convoy a vessel loaded with contraband, would be 
an act of war." 

Senator Fall, Republican supporter of the bill, said : 

i "This Act of Congress, the Senate Act, if adopted is a declaration of 
war, a limited declaration or a declaration of limited war." 

Senator Brandegee, a Republican supporter of the bill, said: 

"I am aware of the effect of this bill. * * * For myself, I would vote 
to-day * * * that 'whereas a state of war exists between the Teutonic 
Alliance and the United States of America, the President of the United 
States is directed to use every means to carry that war to a successful 
conclusion.' " 

Senator Reed, an Administration supporter of the bill, said : 

"The proposition is to take naval guns, perhaps to take expert gunners 
from our warships, and put them aboard these vessels, to sail into the 
prohibited zone, and, if a German periscope shows itself, to fire at the 
periscope, and if the boat shows itself, to send a shot or shell through 
it. Of course, we know the minute that is done by a vessel thus 
equipped, it .will be treated as though it were done by a war vessel of 
the United States; in other words, the act will be the beginning of 
war. * * * 

"It seems to me that it is conceded that vessels shall be armed and 
shall fire upon German submarines the moment they come in sight. If 
that is the purpose, might we not just as well plainly provide that our 
war vessels shall convoy our merchant vessels?" " - 

To this Senator Walsh — next to Senator Hitchcock the most active 
advocate of the bill — replied : 

"The principle is exactly the same." 

And other Senators who championed this bill can be cited to the 
same effect. 

IV. 

1 THE TWELVE SENATORS who opposed the grant of such in- 
definite, unascertained and unconstitutional power as the Armed 
Ship Bill sought to confer upon the President, were exercising their 
rights and discharging their obligation under the Constitution in the same 
spirit that governs the Executive in the constitutional use of his veto 



power, through which one man overturns the majority action of both 
branches of Congress. 

O AS A RESULT of their opposition, the President has convened 
^*" a new Congress. The time of calling an extra session of Congress 
is within the President's discretion and the 65th Congress might have 
been convened immediately upon the expiration of the 64th making a 
practically continuous session. It should be noted that while a new- 
Congress must necessarily be reorganized, the change in the personnel of 
the two branches of the 64th and 65th Congresses is relatively very small. 
There are only 62 new members out of 435 in the House of Representa- 
tives and 16 new Senators out of 96 in the Senate. The support and 
opposition to the bill as developed showed plainly that it was not dealt 
with as a partisan question by a single member of either House. Hence 
no party issue would have been raised on it when the new Congress 
convenes. 

O IN ATTEMPTING to force the Armed Ship Bill through in the 
last hours of the 64th Congress, the President made it plain that he 
desired to be left alone to exercise extraordinary and autocratic power 
affecting the destinies of this country and the world, from the fourth of 
March to the assemblying of the new Congress the following December — 
a period of nine long months. 



V. 



THE LESSONS of the European war and recent events on our own 
continent force the conclusion that there should be no haste in taking 
steps that lead to war, and emphasize the fact that time to reflect is an 
important element in averting war. 

1 IT WAS the evil system of one-man power- and secret diplomacy 
*• in government that plunged the helpless peoples of Europe suddenly 
and hopelessly into the awful war that has been raging for the past 
three years with ever-increasing fury. 

The one universal conviction of those who yet believe in democracy 
is that the first step toward prevention of war and the establishment o t 
permanent peace is to give the people, who must bear the brunt of war's 
awful burden, more to say about it. The Armed Ship Bill by every 
standard of progress and democracy faced backward, not forward. 



2 



WE MIGHT have been at war with Mexico. No one accords the 
President higher commendation than I do, for resisting the pressure 
of the jingoes who would have forced us into war with our neighboring 
state. I believe it reflects honor upon our nation — I believe we should be 



8 



profoundly grateful — that instead of being at war with Mexico, we can 
today congratulate our sister Republic on the peaceful election of a Presi- 
dent by the largest vote ever cast in that country. 

O AND YET, in order to avoid war, we had to submit to the sac- 
*"*• rifices of property rights of our citizens in Mexico. Hundreds of 
citizens were killed. Women were outraged. President Wilson, how- 
ever, even though American property and American rights were violated, 
very rightly, I believe, under the conditions, exercised his great influence 
to keep us out of war with Mexico. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN 
IT IS THE HIGHEST NATIONAL DUTY TO SUBMIT FOR GOOD 
REASONS TO THE SACRIFICE OF UNDISPUTED RIGHTS 
FOR THE SAKE OF GREATER SERVICE TO THE COUNTRY 
AND TO HUMANITY. 



VI. 



I AM AWARE that many good people contend, because the President 
has thus far succeeded in keeping us out of war, he can be entrusted 
with the exercise of the war power more safely than Congress. To such 
I would say that even if Congress could legally abdicate any of the sole 
powers with which it is vested by the Constitution, yet the President may 
err. President Wilson did err at Vera Cruz, where wholly without 
authority, under the guns of an American battleship, American marines 
were landed on foreign shores and fought a battle in which 19 American 
soldiers and 200 Mexicans were killed, and the city of Vera Cruz cap- 
tured. Had this unauthorized act of war been committed upon the soil 
of Great Britain, France, Germany, or any other world power instead 
of poor, weak, distracted Mexico, it would have involved us in war — 
and President Wilson would have taken a place in history beside Presi- 
dent Polk, of whom W T ebster caustically remarked when reviewing a less 
flagrant act, "No one declared war ; Mr. Polk made it." 



VII. 

THE ARMED SHIP BILL was not only unconstitutional; it was, 
in my judgment, foolish and inadequate. It pleased the supporters of 
this bill to assume that it was only necessary to place guns on merchant 
ships in order to defend them successfully against submarine attack. 
There was no evidence before Congress that would warrant the con- 
clusion that arming these ships would afford protection. 



1 



THE AVAILABLE evidence points to the futility of such arma- 
ment. The "Laconia" was armed, but she was torpedoed twice and 
sunk without a chance to fire a shot. Merchant ships of the Allies are 
armed. Their great loss of tonnage is conclusive evidence that guns 



planted on merchant ships are ineffectual in warding off submarine at- 
tack. It is criminal to lure from our harbors our merchant ships with 
passengers, crew and freight to embark on a voyage fraught with such 
imminent peril, in the belief that they may resist attack 



2 



THE FIRST QUESTION we should ask ourselves, before we 
enter on this war with our armed merchantmen or our navy, for the 
express purpose of maintaining our right to the seas, is : What will 
happen to our ships ? If it is so easy to clear the trans-Atlantic lanes 
of submarines, why is not the British Admiralty keeping them open 
and free for our commerce — since our carrying trade across the Atlantic 
now consists of supplies for the Allies — food and ammunition? From 
all we can learn it appears that the British Navy is not attempting this 
perilous task, but is keeping inside carefully-guarded harbors. 

What assurance have we that we can clear the German war zone 
with armed merchantmen, or with battleships as convoys, or with any 
of the so-called "submarine chasers?" 

Manifestly it is an undertaking which the British Admiralty declines 
for good and sufficient reason. 

The American public is being woefully deceived. We are derided 
for hiding behind the British Navy. Moving pictures portray our fleet 
firing on submarines that instantly go to the bottom. The daily papers 
are filled with stuff that would lead us to believe that we need only 
declare war, order out our fleet to scour the seas, and the war is ended 
and won ! 

It is admitted that the submarine discharges its torpedo with deadly 
accuracy at a range of two to four miles. 

It is admitted that the submarine, with its hull submerged several feet 
below the surface, and exposing nothing but its periscope, can discharge 
its torpedo with equal chance to achieve its purpose. 

The periscope furnishes a target no larger than a sailor's cap for 
merchant and naval gunners to fire at. 

I have the best authority for the statement that the chances of hitting 
a target of that size at the distance of two miles, or of damaging a 
submarine so submerged, would in a hundred shots be practically zero. 

Would not a command to clear the seas of German submarines be 
analagous to the order to bring Villa out of Mexico, dead or alive? 
Would it not again be attempting to cope with forces beyond our power 
successfully to control? Are we to blindly and blunderingly enter upon 
an experiment, such as the British Admiralty attempted at the Darda- 
nelles, the results of which are almost sure to be disastrous? 

j y . ... . . 

The one over-powering motive that might justify our entering this 

"war is that of carrying food to the hungry in Europe ; but then we should 

go to all the starving nations through the Baltic to the Poles who are 

suffering as terribly from the effects of war as are the Belgians, and 

10 



getting no relief. We should force our way through the Mediterranean 
to the Greeks, whose poor, we are told, are subsisting on roots and grass. 

But food riots in our own great cities and the ever-increasing diffi- 
culty of the masses of people to maintain the normal standard of living — 
because of the world's shortage and the wicked speculation of Wall 
Street in the necessaries of life — imperatively demand that we should 
not enter upon an aggressive war for humanitarian ends ; much less for 
commercial profit in carrying munitions. 



1 



6 



VIII. 

THE ARMED SHIP BILL asserted the purpose to maintain our 
neutral rights upon the high seas. If we really mean to reclaim and 
assert our neutral rights to the freedom of the seas, by using the armed 
forces of the United States, then we should, as a neutral nation — neutral 
in FACT as well as in NAME — assert those rights against Great Britain 
and the Allies as well as against Germany ; insist on access to the port of 
Bremen as well as to that of Liverpool; and hold all belligerents alike 
to strict accountability for unlawful interference with those rights. 

It was the declared purpose of the Executive to use the authority 
which the Armed Ship Bill attempted to confer upon him to enforce 
our neutral rights against Germany alone. If we are to attempt to 
re-establish and maintain our neutral rights with the armed forces of 
the government, we are bound by every principle which controls in 
international law to assert and maintain those rights against all belligerents 
impartially. 



*\ PERHAPS some consideration of the source of the clamor for 
"• arming our ships may shed light on the real motives back of that 
movement. The demand came chiefly from the American Line, whose 
tonnage is less than five per cent, of the total tonnage of the United 
States engaged in foreign trade. The American Line is a subsidiary of 
the International Mercantile Marine Company, which in December, 1916, 
had 102 vessels flying the British flag, two flying the Belgian flag, and 8 
flying the United States flag. The control of the International Mercantile 
Marine Company, prior to the war, was in England. Whether the stock 
control is now English or Morgan is immaterial. J. P. Morgan is its 
financial head in the United States today, and he is the Official Financial 
Agent of Great Britain in all her dealings with the people of this country. 

Mr. P. A. S. Franklin, whose visits to the Navy Department to 
secure guns for his ships — whose interviews and movements have been 
featured as though he were head and front of the American merchant 
marine — is the active manager of these combined properties ; British. 
Belgian, and American. When one of the American Line ships, armed 
with United States guns, sails out to sea, the orders to fire will be given 
by Mr. Franklin's master of the ship — not by the United States gunner. 

11 



The English owners give orders to Franklin. The English owners take 
their orders from the British Admiralty. Hence, we, professing to be a 
neutral nation, are placing American guns and American gunners prac- 
tically under the orders of the British Admiralty. 

o ENGLAND established the first war zone in violation of inter- 
*^ - national law. On November 2, 1914, she declared the North Sea 
and the Atlantic Ocean, from the Hebrides to Iceland, a military area. 
She sowed the seas with submerged mines. Our government submitted 
to this sweeping order, destructive of our neutral rights, without protest. 
Thereafter with feeble and ineffectual protest we submitted to her rifling 
our mails, prohibiting our commerce with the civilian population of Ger- 
many although that country is not legally blockaded, restricting our 
commerce with other neutral countries, blacklisting our merchants, seiz- 
ing our ships and impressing them into her own service, confiscating their 
cargoes, and with her submerged mines sinking some of our ships and 
destroying American lives. 



IX. 



I AM OPPOSED to the United States making war upon England 
for her ruthless violations of our neutral rights just as I am opposed to 
making war upon Germany because of her relentless violation of our 
neutral rights. 

The belligerents upon both sides are desperate to the verge of mad- 
ness. Germany is bordering upon starvation. England, according to 
Lloyd George, is facing actual want. France is beginning to feel the 
pinch of hunger. Revolution, whose first warnings were food riots, has 
taken place in Russia. Shall we, to maintain the technical right of 
travel and the pursuit of commercial profits, hurl this country into the 
bottomless pit of the European horror? Shall we bind up our future 
with foreign powers and hazard the peace of this nation for all time bv 
linking the destiny of the American democracy with the ever-menacing 
antagonisms of foreign monarchies? 

If the neutral nations had been brought together early in this war by 
united action, they might have compelled the belligerents to respect 
neutral rights, and the force of moral power of the half of the world still 
at peace, might have aided an early termination of the war. 

The United States might even now render the greatest service to 
itself, to humanity, and to the world, by calling a conference of neutral 
nations whose object would be to enforce the rights of neutrals. The 
mere suggestion that food and other supplies would be withheld from 
both sides, impartially, would compel all belligerents to observe the 
principle of freedom of the seas. 

But so long as we have not risen to our opportunity and met our 
first manifest obligation, let us not in this late hour of a world crisis 

12 



exercise less forbearance than the other neutral powers of the world — 
neutral powers whose example we may well follow in keeping out of 
war — rather than urge upon them a policy that would certainly involve 
them in this terrible strife. 

Whatever violation of rights or commercial loss Holland, Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, Spain, Central and South America, may tolerate with- 
out sacrificing their dignity or honor, the United States is strong enough 
and brave enough to endure, for the sake of saving the world from being 
drawn into this dire catastrophe. 

X. 

FOR THE UNITED STATES to enter this war without consult- 
ing the other neutral nations is a fearful responsibility. All hope of 
concert of action is lost, and we know not what degree of chaos may 
follow. 

And now at this time, when a crisis is approaching, when internal 
forces that have been gathering momentum appear to press the war to 
a conclusion, our intervention will confuse the issue, bring new align- 
ments, force other neutral nations to take sides, giving to the horrible 
conflict, now approaching a climax, a fresh intensity, increased fierceness ; 
and prolong it indefinitely. 

We are quick to believe that we shall be able to hasten the end. It 
is being said now on every hand : "We do not want war, but if we go in, 
we will go in with all our might and make a quick finish of it." 

We thought when the war broke out in Europe that it would be a 
bloody, but a very brief, conflict. The people of the world, shocked and 
paralyzed by the threatened cataclysm, took refuge in the hope that it 
could not last ; not more than three months at most, they said. With the 
modern enginery of destructive warfare, we expected to witness a crush- 
ing blow and speedy termination of the struggle. Even those trained 
in military science looked for a terrific death-grapple that would make 
it the greatest and the briefest war in the world's history. 

As it progressed, one country after another was drawn in. Tliat did 
not end it. On the contrary, it added to the number, and multiplied the 
battle fronts. 

And now in the third year of the war, the stricken world finds that 
all these efficient instruments of woe to mankind cannot accomplish a 
big enough slaughter to force a victory. Starvation — race starvation — 
starvation of men, women and children — has become the terrible, relent- 
less, merciless issue in this war madness among civilized. Christian 
nations. 

How can we, with the history of the past three years mapped out so 
vividly before us, assume that the entrance of the United States upon 
the bloody field will stop the war? 

13 



In God's name, let us not deceive ourselves. We stand at the head 
of the neutral nations, outside the territory swept by tins war mania. 
Shall we break the peace of the neutral half of the world? Shall we 
take on the awful responsibility of dragging in on one side, and pushing 
in on the other, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, and 
it may be. South America, until every quarter and corner of the earth 
is one battlefield? 

Who shall then set limits of time or space upon its ravages? 

And for what ? For commercial advantage and fat profits, beneficial 
to a limited number of our dollar-scarred patriots; for neutral rights 
which were surrendered to the belligerents on one side during the first 
three months of the European war! 

For my part, I look upon Europe as cursed with a contagious, a deadly 
plague, whose spread threatens to devastate the civilized world. If it 
were indeed the Black Death that was mowing down its millions of vic- 
tims, instead of this more ghastly war, we should not hesitate to quaran- 
tine against it ; we should keep our ships in their ports and our people 
at home without any hesitation whatsoever ; all personal consideration, 
all thought of material loss, or commercial inconvenience would fall be- 
fore the necessity of protecting our people from being stricken with the 
dread disease. 

I AM NOT AN EXTREMIST. I DO NOT SAY THERE MAY 
NOT BE SUPREME PRINCIPLES FOR WHICH MEN MUST 
FIGHT TO THE DEATH AS A LAST RESORT. But I do believe 
that as organized society in its slow evolution has developed more rational 
means of settling individual differences than brute force, so must the 
nations of the world ultimately find other ways of deciding their dis- 
agreements than war. 

So far as the masses of men who are killing each other are con- 
cerned, the European war is a bootless conflict. The multitudes who are 
dying in the trenches, and the millions who are suffering more agonizing 
pain at home, do not know what it is all about. They are doing their 
patriotic duty as they have been told to do it, and obeying orders without 
daring to question. 

It is unthinkable that with this awful object lesson before them 
the American people are nevertheless today being stampeded into war in 
blind thoughtlessness of its awful consequences. Thirty-seven million 
men are now under arms in Europe. The peace strength of the stand- 
ing armies of Europe before the war began was less than five millions. 
It follows that more than thirty-two millions have been drawn from the 
farms and industrial pursuits, and placed in the trenches to be mowed 
down at the rate of five thousand a day. The United States, once in, 
will stay in to the end. Who can foretell what it means? 

The United Press, from the casualty lists of the belligerent nations, 
estimates that more than 21,000,000 men have been killed, wounded, or 
reported missing to date, affecting a hundred million non-combatants. 

14 



And these brutal facts of death and mutilation only suggest the horrors 
of the insane conflict — women and children homeless, desecrated, starv- 
ing. Already $70,000,000,000 of debt piled up! For unnumbered years 
to come, generations of helpless people must bow their bended backs 
under the tax burdens entailed by this war of destruction. For long 
years to come, all the resources that should go to the world's betterment, 
mortgaged beyond redemption to pay for this awful holocaust! Think 
of it! Any economic loss because of the interruption of commerqe is 
but a grain of sand, compared to the colossal costs of war. 

Ask any plain citizen if he wants war. The involuntary answer is, 
"We ought to know better from the lesson in Europe." How can we 
justify the insistence of our right to push through the mines and sub- 
marines of the war zone, when that right is compared with the obligation 
to protect all the people here at home from the terrible effects of war? 

If the silent masses who found opportunity for expression at the 
November election could today make themselves heard above this clamor 
for war, instigated and sustained by the money power and a subjugated 
press, they would, with even a stronger voice, pray God that this country 
be kept out of war. 



15 



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Metal Edge, Inc. 2007 RaJ. 



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